No Man’s Land.

Thank you for braving this final frontier, boldly going where no man (or at least not your own father) has gone before. You are an intrepid explorer, entering the wilderness of parenthood without GPS, Sherpa or map.

Thank you for entering the twilight zone, reading bedtime stories until the words dance behind your eyelids, waltzing a newborn in the wee small hours of the morning, groggily stumbling from bed even when the name a child calls out in the night isn’t your own.

Thank you for touching, creating connection through the tousling of hair, tossing up in the air, wrestling on the ground, hanging upside down.

Thank you for navigating the sublunary schedules of early morning dentist appointments, middle-of-the-day school conferences, evening coaches meetings.

Thank you for competing as an iron chef, baking cupcakes for birthdays, finding meal inspiration in near-empty frigs, and especially, especially for washing the dishes.

Thank you for stretching the bounds of fair play, watching your daughter in her little league games, and your son at his dance recitals, valuing the passions of each child.

Thank you for standing in our global village, teaching kindness and courage, equality of humanity, respect for our earth.

On this Father’s Day, thank you. Thank you for the times you look up and the rock face appears too daunting, and you reach anyway. Thank you for the times you are lost, and find your way back. Thank you for the times the descent is steep and slippery and you fall, scraping pride and ego and still get up to try again. Thank you for surveying unexplored boundaries, discovering pristine vistas, charting neoteric lands so the next generation of fathers know how to enter every man’s land.